Leicestershire County Cricket Club today announced that former Kent and England Young Cricketers batsman Trevor Ward has joined Leicestershire on a 3 year contract.

Ward who is 31 has scored nearly 12,000 runs in First Class Cricket, 1000 runs in a season on six occasions, 23 First Class hundreds including a highest score of 235* v Middlesex in 1991.

In One-Day competitions Ward averages 43.57 in the NatWest Trophy, 35.04 in the Benson & Hedges and has scored more than 4,500 runs in the National Cricket League including 4 centuries.

County Manager Jack Birkenshaw commented:

'Trevor is an experienced opening batsman and will add great strength to our batting line up. He is an aggressive batsman whose record is outstanding in one-day cricket.

In August I stated that after several years of success I believed that it was time for a few changes to the balance of our squad if we are to continue to be one of the best teams in the country. To date I have signed 5 new players during the past 3 months - Anil Kumble, Phillip DeFreitas, Trevor Ward, Billy Stelling and Stephen Adshead. All these players were top of my shopping list for the winter months and I am hoping still to add one further signing with an experienced wicket-keeper.

I believe that we needed to add another dimension to our Championship winning formula and that was a world-class spin bowler and there are few better than Anil Kumble. In addition I wanted to strengthen our batting lineup and create more competition for places. Trevor Ward gives me that option.

On the bowling front Phillip DeFreitas and Billy Stelling are two top class allrounders who together with Jon Dakin and Vince Wells give us the balance that we need to improve our one-day performances.

The final change to the balance of our squad is that David Millns will be released. David had a benefit with Leicestershire in 1999 and made significant contributions to our championship successes in 1996 and 1998. Given the fact that we have been able to acquire two experienced seam bowlers and that Anil Kumble is likely to bowl a significant number of overs next year I felt it only fair to release David from his current contract and we do wish him well in the future.